Amazon.com (AMZN) shares are sharply higher today, aided by a bullish note this morning from Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney focused on the company’s Kindle e-book reader.
Mahaney today doubled his 2008 unit estimate on Kindle sales to 380,000 from 190,000. He notes that 380,000 is exactly how many iPods Apple (AAPL) sold in the first year.
Ever since Sony lost the battle between its Walkman music player and Apple’s iPod, it has been trying to strike back. This week, it paid $900 million to take full control of Sony-BMG, its music joint venture with Bertelsmann. Sir Howard Stringer, Sony’s chief executive, wants to make it as easy as possible to download or stream music and films to all of Sony’s electronics devices.
Although some people see a reason to buy a device just to read a book, I don’t. Some have said that Amazon’s Kindle is the savior of the e-book market. I don’t believe it. Others say that e-book readers will kill the book-publishing industry and bring it into the 21st century. I think that’s rubbish. The fact of the matter is e-book readers will never have commercial relevance.
The Amazon Kindle has excited a lot of comment from people who have long wanted portable electronic access to books. Amazon has put together a lot of the pieces that make this holy grail seem reachable, even if not yet truly achieved. But in reading the commentary of some of the enthusiastic boosters of e-books, I’m struck by just how much wishful thinking they display.
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